Joe Lonsdale, a disruptive Silicon Valley venture capitalist and entrepreneur who moved to Austin around 2020, shortly after reportedly pitched an expansive vision for an underground transit system touching many of the city's well-known areas.
Lonsdale presented the vision in a 2021 email and follow up calls to then-Mayor Steve Adler, according to Fortune, which discovered the proposal in communications obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
It wasn't the first time a tech tycoon has attempted to take Austin transit beyond 19th century technology.
Lonsdale's overall concept was about as audacious as past proposals — something fitting of a Bay Area visionary who has frequently stirred controversy, including as a backer of the unaccredited and venture-backed University of Austin.
But his transit system plan started simple. Fortune reported he suggested starting with a one-mile underground tunnel between friends' properties, to be built by Elon Musk's Boring Company, which is now headquartered just outside Austin in Pflugerville. The communications suggested it'd be a $6 million to $7 million investment for the proof of concept.
From there, Lonsdale told Adler that the idea might catch fire and spur a movement to make it a citywide system to move people faster and below ground. Lonsdale seemed to be probing for the city's level of support, or at least Adler's.
Ultimately, Lonsdale suggested a system with a 34-mile tunnel with eight stations, according to Fortune. A follow-up phase, he envisioned, could add 278 additional miles with dozens of stations.
But the revelations now seem like only hindsight.
Adler told the magazine he sent the pitches to the city’s transportation department and Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority staff. They didn't pursue it, Adler told Fortune.
It's unclear if the idea could be revived. But it's certainly not the first grandiose transportation vision that has crossed City Hall's radar, courtesy of tech executives.
Back in 2015, a group of wealthy and influential Austin businesspeople suggested a subway system. Former Dell Chief Financial Officer Tom Meredith, at the time, suggested the city could use tunnel boring machines, funded partly by taxpayers and the rest by wealthy individuals, to create a subway system. Innovators such as Silicon Laboratories Inc. CEO Tyson Tuttle were on board with the proposal. Ultimately that didn't see much light, and the city struggled through ballot proposals for even traditional train lines.
Around the same time, local video game tycoon and space traveler Richard Garriott pitched a human-moving pod system for Central Austin that never went anywhere.
The fact that Lonsdale's proposal seemingly on behalf of Boring Company never went anywhere may not surprise many in Central Texas. The Boring Company has been a headline-grabber due to its novel nature and connections with Musk, but it hasn't gained notable business traction in its early stages — though it does seem to be amassing a site fit for a corporate army east of Austin.
The Boring Company's biggest claim to fame now is its shuttle system beneath the Las Vegas Strip. Several other tunneling proposals have failed to gain traction.
For example, the idea for a tunnel in Kyle, a suburb south of Austin, fell apart in 2022. Musk's company has floated at least eight projects in Texas. None have been built in the Lone Star State, where Musk has been amassing workforces for Tesla, The Boring Company, Neuralink and SpaceX.
In his pitch to Austin's former mayor, Lonsdale disclosed to the city he was a Boring Company investor. His investment firm, 8VC, quickly became one of the state's biggest and most influential venture capital players when it shifted to Austin from the Bay Area. The firm makes investments globally and has backed and mentored several Austin startups.
As for the future of truly innovative transit in Austin, it's anyone's guess. The city has seen many bold pitches over the years — including one for gondolas ferrying folks up and down Congress Avenue.
For the foreseeable future, Austin's future mass transit hopes rest on a plan called Project Connect.
